Category: Literature

I noticed on imgur that there were some crazy Ernest Hemingway quotes, I found some of them funny as hell. Now I do not know if any of them are direct quotes (this is the internet) but the picture of Hemingway coupled with these quotes is just hilarious! Although there are the “experts” out who will kill this fun for the rest of us, but f them. I am posting some of them on Facebook and here on the blog because I think it is hilarious.

“Write drunk edit sober”

“Never go on trips with anyone you do not love..”

“I drink to make other people more interesting”

Hell, it will make you look smart while unnerving the “purists” who will argue the quotes. On the basis of Hemingway making the quotes it would go like this:

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“If Hemingway actually made the quotes, or not….”

“If Hemingway actually made the quotes, why…. (what circumstances lead to it)”

“If Hemingway actually made the quotes, who were they meant for….”

“If Hemingway actually made the quotes, was it a part of his mental issues….”

As annoying as that is, it IS what I get from time to time, just little ridiculous lunatics proving their brain power, instead of actually getting outside and mingling a little bit with others. People, dogs, pigeons, whatever light the world ablaze with these funny quotes and pictures (memes).

The Oak Park Il Connection to Hurricane Irma was the Hemingway House down in Key West, you know the house that now has reportedly 54 friggin cats! Now it is stated that Ernest Hemingway got a six-toe white cat once, but how it ballooned to 54 is just freaky. Another thing to think about is the fact this is where Hemingway did a lot of writing, so therefore preserving the site should be of major importance. I mean it is Ernest Hemingway an Internationally acclaimed writer and literally icon.

Was there any damage to the internal working of the house? Were valuable papers and knickknacks safe or if damaged are in a state that they can be easily restored? What are the contingency plans for the staff during Hurricanes as strong as Irma? How will climate change determine the plans to protect the staff or even Hemingway’s personal items in the near or longtime future?

However, “fantastic” Hemingway is, the talk was about the 54 cats! Totally crazy and hilarious at the same time.

I mean even Fox news wrote an article about the condition of the cats, no matter how much of a national treasure any Hemingway fan, or Oak Park, IL or English teacher tells you me is, cats matter more. The interview is interesting as the host obviously did his research on the property and Hemingway. But the Curator when interviewed is a bit off but the interaction tells you a lot of great information but the discussion goes towards the cats. The interviewer magically asks about the smell of the cats in the house HAHAHA. Fun to watch.

Note that the granddaughter Mariel Hemingway (the actress) of Ernest, implored the staff to leave. “What about the smell?” HAHAHA

Mariel Hemingway asking the Hemingway staff in Key West to leave due to Hurricane Irma:

This is a video presentation regarding Ernest Hemingway in Oak Park, IL. I always like to present another viewpoint of looking at subject matter that I talk about so here’s another presentation of the popular point of view regarding Hemingway.

I had one reader email me and ask me where do I get some of the stuff that I find on Ernest Hemingway, usually it is online or I do something like go to the Hemingway Museum and Home to gather facts and so I can see how others are officially (physically) presenting the nature of the writer. I usually would go with sites or organizations like the national endowment of the humanities, (neh.com) because they are the official organization headed by our beloved government to handle the categories which Hemingway’s work would fall under.

I also like people who blog about the subject matter, usually you can find tidbits that are not found the major sites but can be collaborated elsewhere and give you fun facts about Hemingway which may be useful if doing a school report or if you are heading out with a group to the Hemingway museum.

These are some interesting websites about Hemingway that touch upon things OUTSIDE of Oak Park, IL the great village that exploits his name every time they get:

Hemingway’s influence has spanned not only throughout Literature, but into other media as well, from songs to film expanding his influence and mythology of the man and his legend, Even the slightest mention of the writer enhances his legend, but of course not all the mentions of Hemingway is covered by The major parties in Oak Park, IL. Mostly because they artist or parties involved are not reflective of the pristine imagery or just do not have that mainstream appeal that many in Oak Park, IL believe promotes the Heming way brand the way they want.

Take for example Prince who mentions Hemingway in the 1992 song “Love 2 the 9’s” well, the oversexualized artist is not someone you want to link to Hemingway, regardless of his popularity at the time. The 1960’s Batman Tv series mentions Hemingway in the 1966 episode The Bookworm Turns using the “For Whom The Bell Tolls” as a bomb by the villain the Bookworm, to blow up the Batmobile. The Hemingway song, sung by Marie Cain, written by Terrie Frankel, talking about the loves of Ernest Hemingway.

All these fantastic mentions of Hemingway go outside the cleaned up version that is presented by the village of Oak Park, IL they all push the boundaries of how to use the legend. In fact, some of these “clean” factions challenge the famous “wide lawns” saying something taught by most of my English teachers and mentioned by such groups as the National Endowment of the Humanities.

A saying that is as classic as George Washington’s “I would not tell a lie” but since it does fit the convenient or picture perfect presentation of Hemingway it just cannot be, and of course challenged fanatically by these groups.

I do believe all the mentions and usages of Hemingway I mentioned here, could open up more people who never would have picked up a book to be interested in the writings or action of Hemingway giving way to an increase number of fertile minds to who Hemingway was, and other endless possibilities.

But unfortunately Oak Park, Il proves that it does not matter if Hemingway was the actual creator or the “wide lawns” statement or not, that they do have narrow minds especially when it comes to how to reach others who may be interested in Hemingway ways that are different than their own. Maybe, the reason why this happens is because the people interested are different from what this “diverse” village wants include in their perfect little conclaves of culture. Heaven forbid.

Ah, remember when I said that Oak Park, Il or the group that runs the Ernest Hemingway museum and birthplace should pair up with a volunteer group to properly promote Hemingway and these two locations as it relates to Hemingway week?

The International Hemingway Society had a conference at Dominican University during July 17-22, 2016 with presentations done by filmmakers (documentaries) and authors that pertain to Hemingway during scheduled dates. My question is that even though this is exactly what is needed why is it done at Dominican University? Why not the local high school which is even closer to The Hemingway House and museum? Why does Oak Park, Il’s association with River Forest have to take precedence over the convenience of a possible tour and a strategic placement to the Hemingway locations?

It seems to me something else that Oak Park, Il has bungled where the International Hemingway Society has not, in fact, they have organized it better than Oak Park, Il has, maybe because their events are done out of love for the man, the author, Hemingway and not just to exploit him.

I have been blogging for a while now on Oak Park. IL and giving the different blog entries their tags and assigning different categories to the entries is a challenge. Now for Oak Park, IL I have been using these as tags and/or categories:

Oak Park,

Oak Park, Illinois

Chicago

Sometimes if I am taking about a specific subject matter like parking, or the Rental management companies using the word vintage I would use:

Parking

Rental and/or Rent

Apartment

Vintage

But just recently I found that WordPress.com already has general categories created already, so that it can reduce the amount of work that you and other bloggers do when creating blogs. These are some I have found that will link up or be assigned to past, present and future blogs on here:

personal musings

humor

place

current events

I figure I will post these up here along with where I found the different categories for all of you, that like me was in the dark about these premade categories. I did not know that and maybe other people reading are like “duh” but there maybe a few of my readers who are writing and assigning categories while still in the dark (about this information). I know when writing every little bit of help or information helps so here in the link for the categories below, good luck and keep writing!

Note: these are Categories for Word Press.com which I have a blog for Oak Park, IL already but I believe you can use these tags for any blog platform like blogger.com and so on. Hopefully, this helps in the future for writing your blogs, are there any other general categories of tags that may have increased your blog traffic?

Well, I finally got the time to put all the photos I have from my trip to the Ernest Hemingway House and Museum shared onto my google plus account. This is the addy if you want non-Herb Ritts type (regular) amateur type photos from you own usage:

It is about 141 photos I tried to take as many as I could and stay with the guide who ran us through the place. I was using a combination of an old digital camera that wanted to work when it wanted and a cell phone camera. The latter I believe we all know does not give the best quality pictures for anything but a quick glance. I saved them to my google plus in a public folder for viewing so click and share away mofos!

There are some great facts about Hemingway’s life that I learned during the tour of Ernest Hemingway’s birthplace. Again the guides are knowledgeable and very expressive giving life to the many stories surrounding Hemingway’s early years. I will share a few to help those who want to know anything new about Hemingway or needs it for some type of project. Either way, hopefully you can google some of these facts and confirm them for great stories or to beef up that Final report for school.

-Hemingway grew up with two grandfathers in the war, one who could not stop talking about the war, and the other grandfather would just walk away when someone brought it up, most likely the other grandfather.

-Hemingway’s father was not only a doctor but he was also a taxidermist.

-Clarence Hemingway was also great…. in the kitchen and washed the dishes! There is still a stool that pulls out in front of the sink so that you can sit down while washing dishes.

-The early Hemingway children/siblings were born in the house in the same room.

-The maid(s) actually lived on the same floor as the family (I guess this was a new thing at that time) and one had an affair with the uncle that lived in the house as well.

-Hemingway’s grandfather owned the house where he was born and wrote it in his will upon his death that it must be sold. Therefore, after his death the entire Hemingway had to relocate.

-Suicide followed five generations of Hemingways, so Ernest was not an outlier I would guess there was probably a history of mental illness that was never really diagnosed outside of Ernest.

This Hemingway birthplace/home was something that Oak Park, IL does well and it is a shame the village does not know how to properly and respectfully promote Hemingway. The Hemingway birthplace/home is a diamond in the rough here in Oak Park, IL something created out of circumstance, not by Oak Park, Il itself (like parking restrictions) and maybe that is why it does not gel well with the “flow” of Oak Park, IL.

Its Ernest Hemingway week and Oak Park, IL is trying to celebrate the man, the literary icon himself, so when I saw this article on July 12th about a “lost love letter” I was not surprised. A coauthor of a new Hemingway book was recently on “Chicago Tonight” and he mentioned this revolutionary letter that was just found in time for Hemingway week.

I mean what is the coincidence? All of the sudden there is a love letter found, from what I gather is that Hemingway was a hoarder so “finding” a love letter from his past is not surprising. I guess it is the timing of this “find” that makes me wonder how pretentious this is. As if normal people cannot put two plus two together and get four, and that this whole finding is merely a publicity stunt done wrong. Hemingway would probably have a novel’s worth to say regarding the blatant exploitation of such letters especially when it is an obvious marketing ploy.

Seriously, how do you “find” a lost love letter in a museum or vault of Hemingway’s possessions as stated on the “Chicago Tonight” interview? Do you find “lost” money when you walk into a bank? Yeah I shook my head to both questions, the first because I wonder how unintelligent these promoters believe the general public is, and the other because it was a great analogy.

If you are going to attend a museum about Ernest Hemingway either you are a student, fan of, or someone who generally knows something about Hemingway, therefore, semi-intelligent, and such an announcement would have had greater weight if done any other time than before a week dedicated to the author himself. To me, it just cheapens the man, his life and his works, if you read some of the criticism leveled onto Hemingway by his mother alone, you will probably agree with me, that such stunts like this are simply tasteless.

Here is the article that mentions the “lost love letter” written by Ernest Hemingway to Von Kurowsky: